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<title>you wanted happiness, i can’t blame you for that (tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable) by voxofthevoid</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858881">you wanted happiness, i can’t blame you for that (tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid'>voxofthevoid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the hero's shoulders [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Bucky Barnes Feels, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Dominance and Submission, M/M, Masochism, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Reunions, Rimming, Sadism, Steve Rogers Feels, Terribly Contrived Dramatic Timing, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Zig-Zagging Communication</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:07:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,352</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve pulls her into an embrace before he can second-guess the impulse. Natasha allows it, rigid against him for second before she relaxes into his arms, her own coming around him, loose at first and then tight like she wants to squeeze the life out of his body and into her grasp where she can keep it safe.</p><p>When they part, it feels like the end of an era.</p><p>Goodbye, Captain America. Goodbye, Avengers.</p><p>Natasha presses a key into his palm.</p><p>“Stay safe, Rogers.”</p><p>Steve watches her leave and keeps watching until the sound of the tires are long gone. The he turns around and goes to the house. The door opens easily; there’s no dust or wear on it. It swings open without the creak of rusty hinges. The driveway and the bushes beside it are well-kept too. As safe houses go, it’s one of the most pleasant ones Steve’s had to stay in.</p><p>He keeps thinking that right until he steps into the foyer and finds himself face-to-face with one Bucky Barnes.</p><p> </p><p>-<br/>Time heals as easily as it tears you open.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers &amp; Natasha Romanov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the hero's shoulders [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719319</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>961</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you wanted happiness, i can’t blame you for that (tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">

        <li>
          Translation into Русский available: 
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29588421">you wanted happiness, i can’t blame you for that (tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable)</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/avadakedavra/pseuds/avadakedavra">avadakedavra</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Bucky_Bottom_2021/pseuds/WTF%20Bucky%20Bottom%202021">WTF Bucky Bottom 2021 (WTF_Bucky_Bottom_2021)</a>
        </li>


    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <b>Sequel to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/1257302">couldn’t get the boy to kill me</a>.</b>
</p><p>Full credits to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/kocuria">kocuria</a> for the lovely images 💗 Fic title from Richard Siken's "Seaside Improvisation" and series title from "Snow and Dirty Rain."</p><p>As with the first series, I’m fucking the timeline to hell and back, except even more obviously. I understand that Marvel’s gotta keep churning out movies and shove their heroes into crisis after crisis, but I follow the golden fandom rule of “fuck canon except when I want to use it” so there the time between the movie events are much larger. In this case, for instance, over two years pass between Ultron and Civil War.</p><p>Also, I have many causes for beef with MCU as it stands, and one of them is that we never really get to see the effects of the Accords except for the highly focused narrative of Ant-man and the Wasp and then some implications in Infinity War. What happened to the general superpowered public across the globe before the Snap and its reversal presumably gave governments other shit to care about? This series doesn’t have the scope to handle that question in great detail because let’s be real, it’s a pwp series turned plotty, but I will try and uses the spaces between character-focused arcs to flesh out my own speculation on this point.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><hr/><p> </p><p>His body feels like one tight knot, bones and sinews all twisted up under sweating, straining muscles. It’s the way he usually feels after long, exhausting battles, the kind that holds the fate of the world in balance. Schmidt, the first, a lifetime ago—those months of hunting Hydra and an icy respite at the end of it. Waking up, against all odds. Then Loki, Hydra again, Ultron, and it’s no wonder, is it, that he sometimes feels like he’s lived a dozen lifetimes, died a dozen deaths.</p><p>But this isn’t a battle. He hasn’t lifted so much as a finger in the last two weeks. He hasn’t even yelled, no matter how hard Tony tried to goad him into it.</p><p>It would be easier if it were a battle. Familiar territory. He’s allowed to be angry in battles, allowed to unleash the violence under his skin. Steve doesn’t know who he is outside of a fight, these days. At least until now, he had Captain America, the star-spangled bastard an easy skin to step into, but now he’s doesn’t have that, just the fury and judgement of an entire nation whose name he once bore.</p><p>Still bears, officially, but he doubts that state of affairs will continue long. Maybe other, less prominent Enhanced will be allowed to refuse the Accords and live in peace as civilians, but Captain America won’t have that luxury. And privately, in the parts of his soul that has intimately known humanity at its worst, there lingers doubts about the safety of the other Enhanced. He doesn’t trust Ross as far as he can throw him, and it rankles to not to be out there, keeping an eye on things, but he trusts Natasha, for all that they’ve found themselves on opposing sides for the first time since 2014.</p><p>He trusts her and believes her when she says this is for the best. But it doesn’t ease the tension in his muscles or the way his heart feels like one open wound.</p><p>“We’re here, Steve,” Nat says as if on cue, the car rumbling to a stop. Steve turns his head to look at her. She looks straight ahead, knuckles loose around the steering wheel, hair red and wavy around a face carved out of marble.</p><p>She hasn’t quite looked him in the eye since—</p><p>“Staying together is more important than how we stay together,” she said, and Steve couldn’t give her that. He doesn’t regret what he chose, but he does regret the hurts it has caused, especially to her.</p><p>“You plan to tell me what’s here any time soon?”</p><p>“You’ll find out soon enough.”</p><p>Steve’s shield is their only luggage. Natasha’s weapons are on her; untrained eyes and most trained ones would pass over the tells in her clothing. Steve’s attention is more caught by the relative ease about her as she leads him down the path to an isolated but pretty, well-kept villa in rural France. Her eyes still flick about, alert and cautious, but some of the rigid tension has left her.</p><p>Steve follows her lead, comfortable with it the way he is with no one else, and maybe it’s ironic that he trusts the Black Widow with his life, but Natasha’s more than her codename.</p><p>She’s a friend.</p><p>He stops her with a hand on her arm, several feet from the door.</p><p>“Nat.”</p><p>She sighs, the sound resigned and utterly unsurprised.</p><p>“Don’t give me those eyes, Steve.”</p><p>“You’re not even looking at me, how would you know?”</p><p>“I know you.” She turns around. Her smile’s small and lopsided, amused and bitter at the same time. “I’m not mad at you, Steve. I understand. I do. You can’t change who you are, and honestly, I wouldn’t want you to.”</p><p>It’s the most she’s said to him in days, and it’s imbued with more heartfelt meaning that she lets herself show on a good day. Steve doesn’t need that to know how bad it is, how much worse it’s going to get for them, but it does make the knowledge sink a little deeper, hook into his heart a little rougher. He pulls her into an embrace before he can second-guess the impulse.</p><p>Natasha allows it, rigid against him for second before she relaxes into his arms, her own coming around him, loose at first and then tight like she wants to squeeze the life out of his body and into her grasp where she can keep it safe.</p><p>When they part, it feels like the end of an era.</p><p>Goodbye, Captain America. Goodbye, Avengers.</p><p>Natasha presses a key into his palm.</p><p>“I was going to come in. But maybe not this time.”</p><p>“Nat—”</p><p>“It’s alright. You’ll be seeing me. I’m not that easy to get rid of.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t dare try.”</p><p>“Good.” She cracks a smile, smaller than the one before but softer too. “Stay safe, Rogers.”</p><p>Steve watches her leave, keeps watching until the sound of the tires are long gone. The he turns around and goes to the house. The door opens easily; there’s no dust or wear on it. It swings open without the creak of rusty hinges. The driveway and the bushes beside it are well-kept too. As safe houses go, it’s one of the more pleasant ones Steve’s had to stay in.</p><p>He keeps thinking that right until he steps into the foyer and finds himself face-to-face with one Bucky Barnes.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p><em>He cut his hair</em>, is Steve’s first thought.</p><p><em>Godfuckingdammit</em>, <em>Natasha</em>, is the second.</p><p>Bucky’s big blue eyes blink placidly at him. Then he sighs, the sound accompanied by a smile that makes Steve stare, transfixed. He and Bucky didn’t do many things that put smiles on each other’s lips, and when they did, they were the kind that threatened to swallow one whole.</p><p>“She didn’t tell you I’d be here, did she?” Bucky asks, tone and countenance far gentler than Steve’s come to expect from him, except that’s not quite right because there were those times, first when he was drunk and then right at the end—</p><p>No. Steve’s not doing this.</p><p>He takes a breath, lets his aching flesh expand and settle back into something straight-backed and battle-ready.</p><p>Bucky’s always been a fight Steve could throw his whole self into.</p><p>“No. She didn’t. I thought this was one of Nat’s safe houses.”</p><p>“Well, you’re half right,” Bucky says, abruptly turning on his heel and striding into the house, leaving Steve breathless and wrong-footed, unsure whether to follow or retreat. Before he can quite decide, Bucky’s voice drifts over to him. “This is a safe house. Mine. She called last night, said you needed a place to lay low for a while. Ain’t that right?”</p><p>“Yes,” Steve says carefully, following Bucky inside. He finds him in the kitchen, fumbling with two huge mugs. The smell of coffee is ridiculously enticing despite the circumstances. “I didn’t sign the Accords.”</p><p>“I know. The whole world knows.” Bucky snorts, then thrusts a mug at Steve. “It’s not the rocket fuel you favor. But it’s coffee.”</p><p>Steve takes a sip out of sheer self-defense. It’s too sweet and too creamy.</p><p>“It’s good. Thank you.”</p><p>Bucky rolls his eyes at him. He’s sporting that same expression of casual disdain when he nods at the shield, still in its black bag, that Steve is clutching to his chest.</p><p>“You gonna put that down, or would you rather take my head off with it?”</p><p>Steve sucks in a sharp breath and moves to prop the shield against the closest wall. His fingers are oddly hesitant to leave it behind, even like this. Part of him is afraid he’ll never get it back if he lets ago. Part of him is screaming for the same.</p><p>He pries his hand away and turns back to Bucky who’s sipping his own coffee, leaning against the dining table with affected nonchalance. It’s practically an invitation to stare, and Steve takes it, eager in a way he doesn’t dare examine too closely.</p><p>His hair is <em>really</em> short. It falls messily over his forehead, flopping this way and that. Steve’s fingers twitch, both to smooth over the errant strands and for a pencil to capture the view. He doesn’t draw much these days, but Bucky would easily tempt him into it. The new hair and clean-shaved face make him look younger, softer in a way even the deadly metal arm can’t detract from. And he’s wider at the chest, pecs and biceps bulging in truly impressive fashion. He’s unspeakably gorgeous, but then, he always has been.</p><p>It’s been over two years and Bucky Barnes looks good.</p><p>And then there’s Steve, feeling every one of his hundred-something years, never mind that he wasn’t really alive for most of it. Steve didn’t even need the benefit of hindsight to know that Bucky leaving was the best decision for everyone concerned, but if he needed any proof, well here it is, standing proud and tall in front of him.</p><p>Before he left, Bucky told him that he was no good for Steve. It was true, but so was the reverse. Steve wanted to be, would have loved it if Bucky had let him be, but at the end of the day, he wasn’t.</p><p>Something in his chest unwinds a little, and Steve realizes that against all odds, he’s happy for Bucky.</p><p>“Nice place you’ve got here,” Steve tells him instead of the million other things they could, probably should, discuss. “You been here long?”</p><p>Bucky shoots him a glance that’s half-surprised, half-pleased before returning his eyes to his coffee. He drains his mug in a long swallow that pulls Steve’s gaze to the long line of his throat.</p><p>“Around a year. Ten months. I was overdue one hell of a vacation, you know? Wandered around Asia for a few months, then Africa, came to Europe. Didn’t really mean to settle here, was meant to be just a couple weeks. But well.” He shrugs, meeting Steve’s eyes for a split-second. “It’s all been very unplanned, very…spontaneous.”</p><p>Steve nods because he doesn’t really know what to say.</p><p>“Nice,” he manages in the end, almost wincing at how insipid he sounds. “I’m, um, I’m glad for you, Bu—Barnes.”</p><p>“Bucky, please,” comes the too-swift response. “It’s—you can call me that. Barnes is just too weird.”</p><p>Steve has almost exclusively called him Barnes outside of sex. He doesn’t know what to make of this. And maybe there’s nothing to make anything of. Bucky’s made no secret which name he prefers, and Steve’s been thinking of him that way for literal years.</p><p>“Alright,” he agrees softly.</p><p>The ensuing silence is inevitably awkward.</p><p>When Bucky finally puts them both out of their misery, Steve’s unashamedly relieved.</p><p>“I made up the guest room for you. Bathroom’s attached. The clothes are, uh, Natasha’s doing. They were delivered last night. I don’t know her ways, but it’s a little terrifying.”</p><p>Steve snorts. Last night, Natasha was on the phone incessantly, and when she wasn’t, she and Steve were brainstorming ways to get the now-former Avengers to safety. Those of them who signed—Tony, Vision, Rhodey—were as safe as they could be. The others, not so much. The Maximoff twins staunchly refused the Accords and even more firmly rejected Tony’s attempt at protection which ended up looking a little too much like house arrest. They were with Clint at his farm now, the location of which was as much of a secret as anything he had these days. Tony would keep his mouth shut, regardless of his feelings on the Accords. And Sam was sent back home with very strict instructions to tuck the Falcon suit away and play civilian. Sam is wholly human, unlike Steve, Wanda, Pietro, and maybe Natasha. He has more of a chance at being left alone if he puts his head down and stays out of Ross’s radar. Steve doesn’t have much hope of that happening in the long run any more than Natasha has for Steve himself, but for now, it will keep him safe.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Steve says, a little belatedly, he realizes.</p><p>But Bucky only looks surprised.</p><p>“What for?”</p><p>“Being here. I know it’s not, that I’m not—like you said, it’s your vacation. Kinda ruining it, aren’t I?”</p><p>Bucky looks down with a grimace, but he shakes his head very firmly. When he raises his head, it’s to pin Steve with a stern look that’s unspeakably adorable on his softer looking face. Steve feels a vague guilt for thinking these things, like it’s forbidden, somehow, for him to want Bucky after everything they’ve put each other through. But it’s fine to want, isn’t it, as long as he doesn’t act on it?</p><p>He hopes so because god, he can’t help it. He never could.</p><p>“Nat didn’t drop you in my lap just like that,” Bucky’s saying, mildly admonishing with an underlying thread of something Steve can’t put his finger on. “She asked permission. I said yes.”</p><p>“Oh,” is all Steve’s got to say to that. He can’t lie and pretend to understand why Bucky did that. Can’t say he would have done the same if Bucky were in trouble and needed refuge—</p><p>Okay, fine, he would, but still. The house seems nice, cozy. Cream-colored walls and slightly worn furniture. Lived in. Loved, almost. And in the middle of it all, Bucky Barnes with his oversized coffee mug and loose sweater.</p><p>Peace suits Bucky, but Steve’s not sure the same can be said for him, and he feels guilty, tracking his mess into Bucky’s nice, clean floors. Metaphorically.</p><p>“Steve,” Bucky says, and a jolt shudders down Steve’s spine. There’s something about the way Bucky says his name now. It’s mundane; just a name. It’s not the <em>Cap </em>he wielded like a weapon, and it’s not the soft, wounded <em>Steve</em> that came out when he was bare and bruised in Steve’s arms.</p><p>Maybe Bucky can see these thoughts flashing through Steve’s face because his lips tighten warily. But he keeps going.</p><p>“Listen—listen to me. You’re not unwelcome here. You were my captain. And a damn good one. Saved my ass more times than I can count. I want to do this for you.”</p><p>Steve beat that ass more than he saved it but looks like they’re ignoring that for now. Steve’s fine with that.</p><p>“Yeah, I—sorry. This whole thing’s fucked, Bucky. I don’t really know what I’m doing with myself.</p><p>“You and me both, man,” Bucky laughs. “For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing. The Accords…it’s a good idea in theory, but well. World governments, as they are, don’t exactly inspire trust, do they?</p><p>Steve grimaces, mood souring at the reminder. It’s one thing to say he’d rather retire than be controlled. Another to just do it and trust the world not to implode. But it survived the seventy years Steve spent in the ice. Granted, there weren’t alien invasions or killer robots to contend with then.</p><p>“You didn’t sign,” Steve says instead of inciting a discussion he’d already had in all possible iterations with Tony, Nat, Sam, Tony again, Rhodey, and even Wanda. “I checked.”</p><p>It doesn’t feel like a big deal, admitting that, but Bucky’s eyes widen anyway.</p><p>“Yeah. I didn’t. Not gonna either. But hey, I’m just a guy a weaponized arm. Not much of a priority when you have thunder gods and green rage monsters to account for.”</p><p>“Anyone who thinks that hasn’t seen the Winter Soldier in action or properly read those files Nat leaked. But it’s just as well. I don’t want them to hound you too.”</p><p>Bucky smiles, faint and sweet. Steve doesn’t think he’s ever had that expression directed at him, but it looks painfully familiar anyway.</p><p>“Get some rest, Steve,” Bucky orders very gently. “You look like shit, and I know what it takes to do that to you.”</p><p>Steve’s exhausted, tired down to his bones, but he doesn’t want to leave. It’s so tempting to linger here, awkwardly making conversation with Bucky and trying not to stare at that one curl of hair that falls into his eyes no matter how many times Bucky pushes it to the side.</p><p>Yeah, he’s got to go.</p><p>“Thank you, Bucky. Really.”</p><p>Bucky shoos him away with a huff, but he’s smiling when he does it.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The next week isn’t one of the strangest in Steve’s life, but that’s only because he measures strange in terms of alien armies and semi-sentient hammers.</p><p>Bucky’s been mellowed by his ‘vacation’ as he keeps calling it. The Avengers’ Winter Soldier was a quiet man, but it was the intimidating kind of silence, especially to people who didn’t know him. He was popular among the masses, especially online, but press and fans were less likely to hound him simply because of the potency of his glare. And in more private spaces, when he did open his mouth—well, Steve saw him be funny and charming with the other Avengers and some S.H.I.E.L.D agents but with him, Bucky was a whole other beast.</p><p>So honestly, he can’t say if this is a side of Bucky that’s always existed in secret. But it is the first time he’s had it for himself, and god help him, he likes it.</p><p>The first time he looks at Bucky, bleary-eyed and half-corporeal in the morning, and feels his heart flip in his chest, Steve nearly runs out of the house, Thaddeus Ross and the Sokovia Accords be damned.</p><p>Because he’s been down this path, once, with a Bucky who was prickly and foul-mouthed and hellbent on pushing all of Steve’s wrong buttons. He survived the aftermath because Steve has been a survivor from the moment Sarah Rogers cradled his arrhythmic little heart against her own, strong one, but he doesn’t want to do it again. There’s only so much a man should be made to endure.</p><p>He lost Peggy to what he still believes was the right choice. And Bucky, well, Steve never had him in the first place, and the twisted little thing they nursed to life with lust and hurt was lost to a flicker of sense on Bucky’s part.</p><p>Still, he can’t help looking at Bucky and wondering—</p><p>He should fucking stop wondering.</p><p>It would be easier, if he didn’t catch Bucky looking at him the way he knows he’s been looking at Bucky—a little sad, a little scared, a lot wistful.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Bucky does most of the cooking, though he keeps the fridge stocked with frozen meals for when he’s not in the mood for it. Steve limits his interference to making copious amounts of coffee, not just the rocket fuel Bucky still gripes about but the creamy, sweet concoctions Bucky inhales by the gallon. It’s part of his way of helping and trying not to feel like an interloper who’s invading Bucky’s space and eating his food. He’d offer to do the dishes, but Bucky’s got a very nice dishwasher for the job. He dries them, but that doesn’t take much effort.</p><p>It takes all of three days for Steve to start bouncing off the walls, and twelve for him to stop being able to hide it from Bucky.</p><p>“What do you <em>do</em> all day?” he bursts out one night, startling Bucky out of his lazy sprawl on the couch. He stares bug-eyed at Steve, likely because most of their interactions so far have been limited to stilted small talk over breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the two of them taking their meals together out of some masochistic sense of obligation. And fuck, he really shouldn’t put masochism and Bucky in the same thought, but his head is all over the place, and he hasn’t had a proper, use-your-words-like-a-semi-competent-adult conversation with anyone since the first day here, with Bucky. He texts Nat, Sam, and Wanda, but calls have been deemed too dangerous. Tony and he are still ignoring each other.</p><p>Steve’s <em>this</em> close to crawling out of his skin.</p><p>Bucky’s shock melts all too suddenly into understanding, and Steve half-hates it, how good Bucky is at reading him, how easy he makes it seem.</p><p>“Not a lot, honestly,” Bucky says, shrugging like it’s no big deal. “I read a lot. Write a bit. Got this blog that’s not popular or anything but gets its share of views and dedicated followers. It’s fun. Very, uh, normal.”</p><p>Steve blinks at him.</p><p>“What do you…blog about?”</p><p>“Guns.”</p><p>It’s delivered nonchalantly, expression completely deadpan. Steve believes him, and then Bucky cracks up.</p><p>“You’re too easy, Steve. Nah, it’s—I don’t know, a bit of everything? Whatever I feel like that day. Apparently, I’m funny.”</p><p>He’s smirking, easy and charming, and Steve wants to bite the expression of his mouth. He’s used to that impulse being accompanied by the slightly less pressing urge to punch it off, and the sudden lack is still disconcerting, sometimes. Two years, and all it takes is two weeks for him to fall back into old patterns, slightly adjusted.</p><p>“You’re fuckin’ hilarious,” Steve says flatly.</p><p>Bucky grins wider and winks at Steve. Then his expression stills, all deer-in-headlights, like he’s realized what he did. That happens a lot, all the things they haven’t been talking about shoving their way into their shared awareness.</p><p>“You’re happy?” Steve asks, a little desperate, floundering to keep the conversation alive before it’s killed mercilessly by their dark fucking past.</p><p>Bucky freezes, but it’s <em>Bucky</em> so it’s nothing as obvious as holding his breath or stiffening his spine. It’s all in his eyes, the way they blank so suddenly, and blink away from Steve.</p><p>“Yeah,” Bucky replies easily, smiling and with barely a hitch in his voice. His body returns to its languid sprawl. “Sure, Steve, I’m happy.”</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Steve takes Bucky’s advice, though it wasn’t delivered as such, and reads. A lot.</p><p>Bucky has a decent collection of physical books in his house but seems to favor his kindle. Steve did flip absently through a few the first week before inevitably getting jittery and falling into an internet rabbit hole made up of a unique blend of YouTube, news sites, and reddit forums. The Accords are all the rage, and Steve’s not unaware that he poured at least a gallon of gasoline into that fire by refusing to sign. The other Avengers who refused did so of their own volition, but that doesn’t stop people, regardless of whether they’re supporting, criticizing, or simply debating his choice, from labelling him the ringleader. And Steve’s not blind to his influence; he saw the relief in Wanda’s eyes when he refused to sign and held on staunchly to his refusal. He knows what it might mean to others across the world who has little to no reason to trust the goodwill of their governments.</p><p>At the end of the day though, it was a choice he made on the basis of his principles, and it wasn’t one he made easily. </p><p>And now he’s sliding down that rabbit hole again, so he wrenches his attention back to his book. It’s a blend of science fiction and fantasy, not something Steve has tried yet. Bucky’s bookshelves are wild like that. He’s spotted names that wouldn’t be out of place in a literature undergrad’s reading list; Austen, Dostoevsky, Nabokov. But it’s mostly a jumble of fiction genres, ranging from erotic romances to the aforementioned fantasy-science hybrid. It’s an adventure navigating through the stacks, one that makes Steve itch to see his kindle, which he assumes has a more vast and eclectic collection.</p><p>Maybe he’ll ask Bucky, one of these days.</p><p>As if summoned by Steve’s thoughts, Bucky comes in through the front door, a bag of groceries hanging from his metal arm.</p><p>He just blinks when he sees Steve staring creepily at him from the couch. He got used remarkably fast to sharing his space with someone—with Steve, of all people. A little too fast, Steve feels sometimes. He thinks of those handful of months he lived at Sam’s apartment after the Hydra-S.H.I.E.L.D mess up. Thinks of days spent scorching bases to the ground, then coming back to stay for days or even weeks at a place he still wasn’t used to, sharing it with a body that fit into its corners much better. Thinks of the wisps of an attraction that went nowhere in the end, and wonders, not for the first time, if he’d have asked Sam out if not for Bucky’s touch lingering on Steve’s skin like the world’s most tactile ghost.</p><p>That’s not fair though, and that’s not something he’s ever blamed on Bucky. Steve could have dated. Sharon proved that, disastrous as it ended up being. He’s glad he didn’t do that to Sam, glad they’re what they are.</p><p>“A little harder, and you’ll set me on fire,” Bucky says, jerking Steve out of his head.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>Bucky, unwrapping himself from his scarf and jacket, shoots him a look over his shoulder.</p><p>“Well, you were glaring pretty hard.”</p><p>“It’s not—I’m not <em>glaring</em>.”</p><p>Bucky shrugs without looking at Steve.</p><p>“Whatever.”</p><p>He picks the grocery bag back up and vanishes into the kitchen, leaving Steve flailing over that interaction. He wasn’t glaring at Bucky. He was just thinking things somewhat related to Bucky.</p><p>He was wallowing, really, which is what he’s been doing the most since he came here.</p><p>Steve stands up, sets his book carefully on the couch, and strides into the kitchen after Bucky. He’s at the fridge, arranging things inside, and doesn’t react to Steve’s entry beyond a slight twitch. Steve stops short a few steps into the room because—what now? He can’t just whirl Bucky around and insist he wasn’t glaring, seriously. That sounds stupid even in his own head and unbearably childish.</p><p>He stands uselessly there for a few beats before he lets out a gusty exhale and starts helping with the groceries.</p><p>Bucky didn’t buy much, just vegetables, dairy products, and a shitload of spices. He seems to have the first two handled, so Steve starts arranging the spices along their rack. Bucky really does have an impressive amount of spices. Steve never really pays attention to what he puts into the food he cooks for them—if Bucky wanted to kill him, poisoning wouldn’t be what appeals to his sniper’s heart, and well, not much would work on Steve anyway—but everything he makes tastes pretty great, so he assumes the variety of his ingredients have something do with it.</p><p>He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t particularly care, except that he does, not about the spices but that Bucky uses them, has a whole rack for them, and maybe, probably likes experimenting with flavors. It’s something to know about Bucky, about a side of him that Steve hasn’t been exposed to before, and it shouldn’t matter, he <em>shouldn’t</em> care, but he does.</p><p>Two years is a long time to—</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>Bucky’s voice is too close, Bucky is too close, but Steve’s doesn’t jump. He does unclench his hand, finger by finger, from where they were digging into Bucky’s countertop and threatening to dig grooves into the marble.</p><p>“I’m fine,” Steve says, and it comes out as believable as expected.</p><p>Bucky huffs, a laugh in name but utterly unamused. Steve turns around, slow and reluctant, and finds himself facing Bucky with barely a foot of space between them. Stormy blue eyes are narrowed at him, and it’s a hell of a color, those eyes, grey and blue and everything in between—a shade Steve won’t be able to put to paper no matter how hard he tries, not that he has dared.</p><p>He'll never be able to tell what it is about that moment that makes him do it, but he’ll always think of those eyes, sharp and threatening to pierce into his soul.</p><p>Bucky draws in a sharp breath when Steve grabs his shoulders, and that gasp ends as a ragged exhalation against Steve’s neck. Steve shivers at it, Bucky’s breath hot and humid on his skin, but doesn’t let go. Keeps Bucky tucked firmly against him in a one-sided hug and buries his face in Bucky’s hair.</p><p>It feels different on his face than Bucky’s long hair used to. It smells different too, with a distinct but pleasant tang of something fruity. But the shape of his skull is familiar when Steve curves one of his hands over the back of Bucky’s head.</p><p>“Steve,” Bucky says, the name more breath than word.</p><p>Steve says nothing and doesn’t let go, and it doesn’t take more than a few beats of his overeager heart for Bucky to slide his hands along Steve’s body, locking them at the small of his back. He presses closer, slots his body to Steve’s in a way that’s more comfortable for both of them. And he sighs, open-mouthed against Steve’s skin.</p><p>“Could’ve just asked if you needed a hug, pal,” he says, voice light but not at all mocking. “Didn’t have to get all…repressed about it.”</p><p>“I don’t need a hug,” Steve says and holds Bucky tighter. “And I’m not repressed.”</p><p>Blatant lies, but Bucky doesn’t call him out on it. He lays his head on Steve’s shoulder and breathes slow and deep. Steve wants to ask, for some bizarre reason, whether Bucky can hear his heartbeat like this, whether it makes any more sense to him than it does to Steve.</p><p>They stay like that for a long time. It probably feels longer than it really is, but that’s easy enough because to Steve, it feels like a whole lifetime compressed into the rhythm of two sets of lungs breathing together.</p><p>They untangle at the same time and all at once, familiar in spite of everything with each other’s bodies.</p><p>Neither of them goes far, and when all their limbs are their own again, Bucky just stands there, nestled into Steve’s space and peering up at him with half-lidded eyes.</p><p>Steve wants to take Bucky’s beautiful, chiseled face in his hands and press his lips to his forehead. He wants those long lashes kissing his cheeks. He wants something sweet, something untainted.</p><p>But this is the wrong place to look for that, he figures. Bucky’s the wrong person.</p><p>“I’m glad,” he says instead of the thousand formless noises crowding up his throat. They show in his voice, though, in the tear-thick strain of it. But he finishes his thought, because Sarah Rogers didn’t raise a quitter. “It’s good that you’re happy. You deserve to be, Buck.”</p><p>He slips out of Bucky’s reach and flees the kitchen before he can get a response.</p><p>But he finds soon enough, with his enhanced hearing, that there was never going to be one.</p><p> </p>
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</div><p> </p><p>Things change, after that.</p><p>When Steve lets himself think about it, really think about it, he admits that things were always going to change. The stilted truce of earlier was never going to last. But if you Steve asked a couple of weeks or even a couple of days earlier, he’d have said that it would be violence that erupts between them. Instead, what happens is that they start to talk more.</p><p>A part of him regularly chimes in that the violence would be preferable, but that’s the same part the insisted he wear plaid button-downs and loose pants and listen to records and avoid chain stores like the plague. It’s not rational or healthy, just stubborn and scared to change. But Steve’s never been one to let fear run his life for long, and besides, maybe it was comforting at first to hold on to the vestiges of the life he lost, but the closest thing he found to peace came after he admitted that the past was where fossils came from.</p><p>Peggy’s ghost will materialize right here in Bucky’s very neat kitchen to smack Steve up the head if he regresses now.</p><p>God, <em>Peggy</em>–</p><p>He misses her. Not the red-lipped, sharp-eyed bombshell of a woman that he kissed before he plunged a plane into the ice, but the person she grew into. Older, softer, and just as sharp when her fading mind let her be. The loss of her throbs like an open wound.</p><p>And it’s so, so tempting to clam up and flee to his room when one night, after dinner, Bucky says, “I heard about Director Carter. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Steve locks his muscles down and forces himself to stay right there, sprawled in the armchair that he’s never seen Bucky use.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says stiffly.</p><p>Silence returns, the way it usually does, any conversation between them carried out in little awkward snatches. And for a moment, it seems like that’s that, but then Bucky’s setting his tablet aside with a quiet thump and leaning forward on his knees, a few strands of his untamable hair falling into his eyes again.</p><p>“Are you okay, Steve?”</p><p>He almost says yes. It’s on the tip of his tongue, an easy lie. He gave it to Nat, first, and then Sam, and it’s not like either of them believed him, but they didn’t push because there was no time to entertain Steve’s emotions, not when the world was coming down hard on the whole lot of them.</p><p>But what’s the point here, really? Bucky’s seen worse from him. Bucky’s seen the worst of him.</p><p>“No, not really.”</p><p>For a moment, Bucky looks surprised. Then his expression softens, and Steve’s ready to flee at the first hint of pity, but all Bucky gives him is a lopsided, sympathetic grimace.</p><p>“Yeah, I bet. I’m not saying this to be an asshole, but your life sucks, Steve.”</p><p>And Steve—Steve <em>laughs</em>.</p><p>It’s short and loud and somewhat hysterical, but it’s what he does. Bucky doesn’t laugh with him, which is a relief, but when Steve calms down and looks at him, he’s greeted with a tentative smile.</p><p>“Tell me about it,” Steve says.</p><p>“Do <em>you</em> want to?” Bucky asks, leaning back on the couch in a move carefully calculated to look casual. Steve spots the stiffness in his shoulders and the wariness he can’t quite hide.</p><p>“Want to what?”</p><p>“Tell me about it.”</p><p>It takes Steve a moment to understand. When he does, he’s tempted to laugh again, but he’s afraid that if he starts, he won’t stop until he’s screaming.</p><p>“You really wanna play shrink for me, Bucky? Because I don’t see that ending well.”</p><p>If Bucky’s discomfited by the allusion, however vague, to their shared past, he doesn’t show it. He just shrugs, eyes intent on Steve for all that he’s playing at nonchalance.</p><p>“Not planning to play shrink for you. Way underqualified for that. But I can listen. I’ve been told it helps.”</p><p>“Yeah? You’ve ever taken that advice?”</p><p>“No,” Bucky says frankly, something Steve respects in spite of the situation. “But I can’t say I’ve never wanted to. Might have done me some good.”</p><p>Steve mulls over that for a second. He doesn’t really know what Bucky’s offering. He’s not sure Bucky knows what he’s offering. It’s not that there aren’t things he wants to say, but they’re just shapeless thoughts flitting along his mind. Most of what’s critical has been said, in all manners possible, so many times already, mostly to Tony. The rest is, well—he won’t call it unimportant because those are the things he told Peggy, in his monthly visits to her. But it’s one thing to tell her his fears and doubts and insecurities and another entirely to tell Bucky. Peggy and Bucky have only one thing in common, and Steve’s barely willing to acknowledge that to himself on a good day.</p><p>Still, he doesn’t turn Bucky down firmly but politely and run off to hide in his room.</p><p>It takes him a few minutes to realize that he doesn’t want to run, and by then, Bucky’s shifting a little in his seat, uncomfortable and obvious about it, not like a sniper at all. Maybe it’s made him soft, these two years without death and violence, but Steve doesn’t think that’s it.</p><p>“I guess I don’t know where to go from here,” Steve finally says, partly to put Bucky out of his misery but mostly because he just wants to say it. “I signed Captain America’s death warrant when I refused to sign the Accords. And now I gotta figure out what that means for me.”</p><p>Bucky’s response is shockingly fierce.</p><p>“You’re more than Captain America. You’re Steve Rogers. There would be no Captain America without you.”</p><p>“You’d be surprised what politicians can cook up,” Steve says darkly, remembering Senator Brandt. “And it’s not that simple, Buck. You gotta know that. I’m not just Captain America, yeah, but I’ve been that guy with the star and the shield for too damn long to just stop. Except I have to, now, but I’ve never been able to just ignore it when a situation is pointed south. I wish I could, sometimes.”</p><p>Bucky’s eyes narrow.</p><p>“No, you don’t.”</p><p>Steve pauses, breathless for some indiscernible reason.</p><p>“No. I don’t.”</p><p>Bucky shakes his head, smiling. A new smile, sharp but not cruel. If anything, it’s amused, and Steve would even dare call it fond. It tugs at his own lips, makes them curl shyly up.</p><p>They stare at each other, caught up in the moment, until reality settles in like a spray of ice-cold water.</p><p>Bucky’s the first to look away and the first to speak, but his voice has a rushed quality to it, the ease of earlier vanishing entirely.</p><p>“You really think they’ll hold? The Accords? Or is it all gonna fall apart once another disaster hits and they’re scrambling for heroes again?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Steve replies honestly, looking out the window. It’s dark outside. Nothing moves. “I really don’t.”</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>They don’t just fall into bed. In some other life, it could have happened like that. In this, it already has, and all it’s done is leave them skirting around each other while settling into quiet domesticity at the same time. It’s still not the strangest situation Steve’s been in, but it’s close.</p><p>The attraction doesn’t go away. It’s never going to, not when the worst Bucky said or did wasn’t enough to kill the fire. If it was just physical, just sexual, Steve could have ignored it and kept on doing it until Natasha finally saw fit to extract him from here. But it’s never been just sex with Bucky, not even when it would have saved them both a world of trouble.</p><p>And knowing Bucky like this, his edges softer and smiles sweeter, his words honest and eyes kind, it’s harder to just—</p><p>Steve never stopped, really. Didn’t try very hard either.</p><p>Frustrated love is a surprisingly easy state to cling to, the sharp ache of his own misery almost comfortable on cold nights.</p><p>And he doesn’t know what Bucky feels for him. He was the king of mixed signals right up until he left, and he’s no better now, barely touching Steve but always <em>looking</em> at him with those beautiful blue eyes of his. They’ve always been expressive, be it in cold anger or mad passion, and Steve’s as entranced now as he was five years ago, when Bucky first started looking, <em>really</em> looking.</p><p>He doesn’t mean to, not really, but it’s a particularly frustrating day. His own fault, watching a debate on the Accords. Well, they call it debate, but it’s clear from beginning to end that as far as the program is concerned, there’s only one right choice, and it’s not the one Steve made. That would be fine, because he’s used to it by this point and he knows there are people on the other end of the spectrum as well, but what really ticks him off is that every single person debating the rights of the Enhanced are non-powered. As if they know what it’s like. As if they can just <em>decide</em>—</p><p>He's not even angry by the end of it. He’s just so fucking tired.</p><p>And when Bucky walks by him in a t-shirt that stretches tight across his biceps and that damn hair flopping all over his forehead, and Steve doesn’t think, just reaches out to snag him by the elbow.</p><p>His fingers close in over unyielding metal, but Bucky’s body sways into his all too easily.</p><p>“Steve,” Bucky gasps, both hands flying up to Steve’s chest. He peers up at Steve from under his lashes, managing as he’s always done to make it seem like there’s more than a couple of inches of height between them. He blinks, lips parting a little. “I don’t think you want another hug.”</p><p>Steve snorts and cups Bucky’s face with one hand. Somewhere between reeling Bucky in and thumbing his lower lip, Steve commits to it.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Bucky swallows. His exhale falls warm on the pad of Steve’s thumb.</p><p>“We shouldn’t,” he says, already reaching up to wind his arms around Steve’s neck. “Didn’t end so well, last time.”</p><p>“History doesn’t always have to repeat itself, Buck, current political climate aside.”</p><p>Bucky laughs, the corner of his eyes crinkling. It feels like he’s proving Steve right because this isn’t how they did it, before. Their laughs weren’t carefree.</p><p>“Don’t we wish.”</p><p>They move at the same time. Steve makes a soft, hungry noise against Bucky’s mouth and kisses him for all he’s worth.</p><p>It’s over all too soon, and it doesn’t matter that the kiss is almost chaste, just lips and teasing slips of tongue; when they pull back, Steve is panting into the charged air between them, and Bucky’s cheeks are flushed a faint pink.</p><p>“Wanted to do that since you marched in here with that goddamn shield,” he says. He reaches up to press a quick, hard kiss to Steve’s jaw. “I promised myself I wouldn’t.”</p><p>“Me too,” Steve says, and then adds, in a hushed whisper, “I’m sorry.”</p><p><em>Sorry I couldn’t keep it</em>, he means. <em>Sorry I don’t want to</em>.</p><p>Bucky’s eyes flutter closed, and when he kisses Steve again, it’s forgiveness and apology both.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>They fuck.</p><p>There’s a sense of inevitability to it, but that won’t sink in until later, when Steve’s lying breathless in bed with Bucky curled under his arm.</p><p>When it happens, when he’s spreading Bucky out on the bed and tasting the salt of his skin, all Steve can feel is the raging pulse of his own need and its counterpart in Bucky’s staccato breaths.</p><p>He licks and sucks at Bucky’s cock until he’s at the edge, and then he pulls back, sliding his hand around the base and squeezing hard to stave off his orgasm. Bucky protests with bared teeth and bitten-off curses, but when he gives up and slumps back on the bed, he’s grinning wide and beautifully wild around the eyes. Steve presses a smile into Bucky’s untrimmed pubic hair and kisses his way back up his body, finding distraction aplenty in random patches of skin.</p><p>By the time he’s tonguing one peaked nipple, Bucky’s got his flesh hand tangled in Steve’s hair and the metal one is gripping the headboard hard enough to make it creak.</p><p>Steve bites sharply at the little bud and pulls back to the sound of a hissed breath. He stares for a moment, then raises his gaze to Bucky’s.</p><p>“They got bigger,” he says, cupping one whole pec in his hand in needless demonstration. He squeezes hard, eyeing the flesh visible between his splayed fingers. “Christ, look at that. It’s fuckin’ indecent.”</p><p>Bucky sucks in a sharp breath. His cock, trapped between their bodies, gushes a load of precum. Steve’s dick gives an interested twitch too, and it would be easy to just grind his hips down until they both spill over themselves, but that’s not what he wants tonight.</p><p>“Whatcha gonna do about it?” Bucky asks, pushing his tits up into Steve’s hand in a very clear suggestion of what he should do. It makes Steve smile, but it’s nice, not nasty, and that’s a novelty too.</p><p>He shows Bucky exactly what he’s gonna do. His nipples have always been sensitive, and Steve exploits that mercilessly, licking and sucking and <em>biting</em> until Bucky’s writhing under him and scrabbling at Steve’s shoulders like he wants to push him away but doesn’t dare try. When they’re swollen and hot, Steve turns his attention to the rest of his chest, sucking angry bruises into the pretty skin there. He laves his tongue over the blooming marks, more to tease than to soothe, and when he’s finally had his fill, Bucky’s glassy-eyed and trembling, every other breath a helpless call of Steve’s name.</p><p>Steve has to kiss him, then, so gentle it hurts, first, and then hard enough to taste blood.</p><p>“Fuck,” Bucky grits out when they part, chasing Steve’s mouth only to be pinned down by a hand on his neck. “Steve, fuck, <em>please</em>.”</p><p>“Hmm?” Steve’s distracted, for several, pleasant moments, by his hand around Bucky’s throat and how helpless he looks with his pulse pounding against Steve’s palm. “Please what, sweetheart?”</p><p>Bucky shudders, mouth falling open. Steve swoops in to lick inside, swallowing the blood he’s spilled, and his hand presses down hard as he does, making Bucky gasp breathlessly into the one-sided kiss.</p><p>“Fuck me,” Bucky says the moment he’s got the air for it. He sounds wrecked. “You gotta fuck me, Steve, I’ve been—god, I—”</p><p>“Ssh, I know,” Steve croons, easily falling back into familiar patterns. “What’s your word, Bucky?”</p><p>“Brooklyn.” Bucky, to his credit, doesn’t hesitate in his answer. But then he adds, petulantly, “I won’t need it.”</p><p>Steve doesn’t dignify that with a response.</p><p>He makes his way back down Bucky’s body, grinning when even fleeting attention to his pecs make Bucky yowl shamelessly. His licks around his cock again, just to taste, and pulls away despite Bucky’s protesting whine. The sound turns into a pleased moan when Steve bends him in half and spreads his cheeks with one hand.</p><p>“God, yes, fuck,” Bucky’s blabbering, and Steve lets the noise wash over him like a pleasant wave as he sets his mouth to Bucky’s hole.</p><p>They shudder in tandem at the first taste, Bucky’s rim fluttering as Steve sighs against it. He’s missed this, Bucky’s body under his mouth, the way he’s so open in his pleasure, squirming and screaming for Steve. And he doesn’t know if they’ll do this again, can’t even imagine where they’ll go from here with all the history they’ve got, so he’s going to take all he can, all Bucky will give him.</p><p>And Bucky, it seems, wants to give him everything, pushing back into Steve’s mouth and begging for more until Steve’s tongue slips inside and shuts him up.</p><p>When he pulls back, chin wet and breathing hard, it’s to find Bucky flushed down to his chest and crying quietly. The sight’s a bolt to Steve’s heart and his cock, and he reaches out with one hand to cup Bucky’s face, the other going down to squeeze his dick for relief. Bucky nuzzles into his palm, lips parted so his breath falls gently on Steve’s skin.</p><p>“Lube?” Steve croaks, throat closing up tight.</p><p>Bucky doesn’t shift away from Steve’s hand, casting about blindly with an arm until it slides under an askew pillow and emerges victoriously with the lube. Steve doesn’t move to take it, leaning over instead. He wants to kiss Bucky, but he presses his mouth close-lipped to his forehead instead. It’s Bucky who grabs him by the nape and yanks him down into a wet, messy kiss. Steve groans into it, surprised and impossibly turned on.</p><p>“I’ve had worse in my mouth, Steve,” Bucky says into the scant space between their lips. “I clean up well, thank you.”</p><p>Steve laughs helplessly and maybe a little too long. But when he pulls back, Bucky’s grinning too. He doesn’t think they’ve ever been this playful during sex. He can feel the difference in his chest, a light, bubbly feeling that he can’t quite wrap his mind around.</p><p>“You do,” Steve agrees. “Best ass I’ve ever tasted.”</p><p>Bucky makes a strangled noise and flushes bright red, like it’s different when <em>Steve</em> says it.</p><p>Steve settles back on his knees and uses Bucky’s momentary distraction to push two fingers into him, dry. Bucky cries out, clenching tight around the fingers. Steve twists them together and presses in deeper, until Bucky yields for him with a pained groan. He’s looking at Bucky’s face while he does it, drinking in the dark of his eyes and the way he’s biting his lip hard enough to turn it white.</p><p>“Too much?” Steve asks, a taunting edge to his voice.</p><p>“F-fuck you,” Bucky manages. His hips bear down, predictably trying to take it deeper. “Oh, oh, god, I—”</p><p>Steve pulls his fingers out, chuckling at the high-pitched sound Bucky makes, half-relief, half-complaint.</p><p>He grabs the lube and slicks himself up, and when he takes his eyes off the angry red of his dick to look at Bucky, he finds him staring hungrily at Steve’s hand working over his cock.</p><p>“This’ll hurt a bit,” Steve says, not without relish, as he positions himself. “Scream for me, Buck?”</p><p>He waits until Bucky’s opening his mouth with a familiar mulish expression and an insult on the tip of his tongue before pushing into him. Whatever Bucky was going to say turns into a strangled groan. He’s <em>tight</em> around Steve, nowhere near stretched enough, but he can take it, Steve knows he can take it, and sure enough, Bucky pants hard and moans helplessly with every inch Steve takes for himself but doesn’t stop him.</p><p>Steve pauses with his dick half inside Bucky. It was one thing to ignore it when he was focused on Bucky’s pleasure, but it’s another thing now, gripped so tight by Bucky’s wet heat. He’s perilously close to losing it right there, spilling half-cocked, literally, inside Bucky.</p><p>Under him, Bucky’s quiet and gulping for air, but he hasn’t screamed yet and Steve can’t have that.</p><p>He grits his teeth, grabs Bucky’s thighs hard enough to bruise, and bottoms out in one, violent thrust.</p><p>Bucky arches off the bed with a wordless scream.</p><p>Steve turns and sinks his teeth into Bucky’s thigh, trying to bring himself under some semblance of control and stave off his orgasm. Bucky jerks at the pain, whining pitifully, and the sound makes Steve hot all over, wreaks havoc on his restraint.</p><p>“<em>Steve</em>,” Bucky calls after a moment, voice breaking on the name. Steve responds without thinking, grinding his hips, moving his cock inside Bucky without pulling out much. “Fuck, fuck, Steve, I’m—”</p><p>“Touch yourself,” Steve says through gritted teeth. He thrusts, harsh and dirty, stars bursting under his lids with each slick slide. “C’mon, Bucky. Want you to come.”</p><p>Bucky groans like he’s dying and obeys, reaching down with a shaking hand. He pulls at his cock almost frantically, and Steve watches, hypnotized, and fucks Bucky in short, rough thrusts, trying each time to crawl a little deeper, bury the whole of himself inside this man’s welcoming heat.</p><p>Bucky comes first, spilling over his hand with a guttural cry. His ass tightens convulsively around Steve, and he just manages to fuck Bucky through his orgasm before following suit with a cry of his own.</p><p>He slumps over him, afterward, and Bucky’s legs lower without Steve holding them up. The change in position makes Steve’s cock slip out, and Bucky makes a faint noise at that, opening his eyes with great reluctance. Steve kisses him, hard and with zero finesse. Bucky participates just as clumsily, and they keep kissing even when Steve rolls off of Bucky and lies beside him instead.</p><p>Eventually, they break away, breathing a little more gently.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>Steve snorts, and Bucky frowns mock-indignantly.</p><p>“Hi,” Steve says mollifyingly.</p><p>“Better. My ass hurts.”</p><p>“Poor baby.”</p><p>“Oh, fuck you. Wipe all that smug off your face.”</p><p>“Can’t, it’s permanent.”</p><p>Bucky scowls, and it’s strangely adorable on his sex-flushed face. He doesn’t hold it for a long, a smile taking over as he slumps down on the bed. Steve watches him with a smile of his own, but it fades as the reality of what they just did trickles in. He hasn’t done this in two years, but the memory of twice that time is hard to shake.</p><p>He finds himself holding his breath, waiting Bucky to tell him to fuck off.</p><p>Maybe Bucky feels the tension in his body at the places they’re pressed together. He cracks his eyes open, and whatever he sees on Steve’s face makes his expression twist into one that’s unmistakably guilty.</p><p>“I’m so—” Steve starts, but Bucky cuts him off.</p><p>“Get us something to clean up with?”</p><p>It’s a tentative question, with space for acceptance and rejection. Steve is stupidly grateful to say yes.</p><p>Bucky’s bathroom is built more or less like the one attached to Steve’s room. There’s more stuff though, and Steve stops a moment to stare at the frankly impressive array of products. It’s hard to identify the emotion choking him up, but it’s nothing unpleasant. He manages not to dally too much and ducks out, clutching a damp towel.</p><p>Bucky lies there watching Steve with half-lidded eyes as he wipes him down. It’s when he’s gently patting at Bucky’s hole that he gets a vocal reaction—a low whine followed by a full-body shiver.</p><p>“Sensitive?”</p><p>“Been a while,” Bucky answers. He sucks his lips in, then adds, “I haven’t, um, not since you.”</p><p>“Oh.” There’s a moment where Steve doesn’t know what to say to that. And then he gives away the truth. “Me too.”</p><p>“That’s probably fucked up, huh?”</p><p>“I was saving the world. What’s your excuse?”</p><p>“Fuck you, Rogers, I don’t know why people think you’re nice.”</p><p>Steve throws the towel on the floor and lies down again, pleased but still surprised when Bucky immediately cuddles up to him.</p><p>“You’ve known better, yeah?” Steve says, stroking Bucky’s hair, liking how the shorter strands sift through his fingers. “I like your hair. It’s cute.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“Mmhm. Liked it long too. You’d look good anyway.”</p><p>“Flatterer,” Bucky gripes, but he really does sound flattered. It makes Steve smile, makes him forget his worries, and that’s why it catches him off-guard when Bucky says, “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Even surprised, Steve doesn’t insult either of them by asking why.</p><p>“Me too,” he says eventually. He opens his mouth to add more, only to find that he can’t. It’s funny because he’s never been one to run from confrontation, verbal or physical. And alright, maybe this isn’t strictly a fight at the moment, but all the times Steve tried to imagine this exact same conversation in his head, it turned into one.</p><p>And he doesn’t—he doesn’t want it to.</p><p>“Mind if I sleep here?” he blurts out. It’s not subtle, and he hasn’t hidden the frantic note in his voice. He thinks he’s fucked up anyway when Bucky tenses in his arms, but then he relaxes, muscle by muscle, until he’s all but melted against Steve.</p><p>“Hopin’ you would.” He presses a kiss to Steve’s chest, the part closest to his mouth. “G’night.”</p><p>“Good night, Buck.”</p><p>It takes him a long time to fall asleep. And all that time, Bucky breathes slow and even against him.</p><p>Too even.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Steve wakes at once and suddenly, the way he usually does. He doesn’t bother hiding his surprise at finding Bucky still in bed, but he’s plastered along Steve’s back, spooning him almost, so Steve manages to keep his shock to himself.</p><p>One metal finger prods his belly very deliberately, the same gesture that woke Steve up in the first place.</p><p>“Wha–”</p><p>Bucky says something, but it’s a jumble of sounds that not even superhearing can make sense of.</p><p>“<em>What</em>?”</p><p>Bucky unsticks his mouth from Steve’s shoulder and says, “Coffee.”</p><p>“I—you woke me up to, what, get you coffee in bed?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>God, someone’s chatty in the morning. Then again, last time when Bucky was actually chatty, it was to tell Steve he was—well, not leaving him because they were never together, but something to that effect.</p><p>Steve lets out a deep breath and tells his mind to shut the fuck up and not <em>ruin this</em>.</p><p>“Get you own coffee,” he says, already knowing he’s going to get Bucky his goddamn coffee.</p><p>“Steeeeve.”</p><p>“You are a child.”</p><p>“’Kay, Daddy.”</p><p>Steve chokes.</p><p>By the time he stops sputtering, Bucky’s shaking at his back, laughing silently.</p><p>“I’ll get you your fucking coffee,” Steve says, ignoring his burning cheeks. Bucky, despite his caffeine craving, proves extremely unwilling to let him out of bed, and by the time Steve untangles himself from grasping limbs and the far more effective whining noises, he’s grinning uncontrollably and happier than he remembers being in a very long time.</p><p>He goes to the bathroom first, categorically refusing to go make coffee with his morning breath flavored with dick and ass. At the doorway, he turns around. Bucky’s lying there with his eyes open, watching Steve with a soft expression.</p><p>Steve all but floats into the bathroom.</p><p>Naturally, it all goes to hell sooner than later.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>He’s carefully measuring spoonfuls of sugar into Bucky’s mug and trying not to judge too much when it starts. His body reacts before his mind does, going taut and battle-ready.</p><p>His phone’s on the couch where he abandoned it sometime before ambushing Bucky last night. The screen’s lit up with a call, and there’s no name attached, just an unknown number. It’s the first call he’s receiving since coming here. It’s been a month, and it wasn’t all good, but it was never really bad either, and last night was—</p><p>It could be nothing, but his instincts are screaming. He picks up the call anyway.</p><p>“Ross got them,” Natasha says without preamble. “He came for the twins. Got Clint too. I got his family to safety but couldn’t get to Sam in time. They’re in the Raft.”</p><p>“Jesus.” Steve sits down hard on the couch. “The Raft?”</p><p>“Underwater high-security prison. Nigh impenetrable.”</p><p>“We can’t just leave—”</p><p>“We’re not,” she snaps, then takes an audible deep breath. Must be bad, if she’s letting Steve know how rattled she is. “But they want this. Pretty sure they took Sam to lure you out.”</p><p>“Fuck. Nat. You’re safe?”</p><p>“Yes,” she says, tone softening marginally. “I may also have de-signed the Accords when I took out some of Ross’s men. But good news. So did the king of Wakanda.”</p><p>“T’Challa fought Ross?”</p><p>“I wish. No, he pulled out of the Accords. You won’t have seen it in the news, it’s all very hush-hush. Not for long though. Wakandan royalty are very vocal about how they don’t intend to promote human rights abuse. Also, Tony’s pissed.”</p><p>Steve pinches his forehead and takes a deep breath of his own. It doesn’t take much effort to remain calm. Crisis-mode comes easily to him these days.</p><p>“Will he help us? Either of them.”</p><p>“T’Challa, I don’t know. But we can ask. Vision’s here, but he didn’t stop to ask Tony. And I’ve got this other guy. One of Clint’s friends. Lang. He’ll be useful. I’m on my way. Be there in an hour.”</p><p>“Got it.”</p><p>“Steve, tell Bucky to be careful.”</p><p>“You don’t want him on the mission?”</p><p>“You can ask him, but not really. Better to have some cards up our sleeve if this goes to shit.”</p><p>“It won’t. I’ll see you, Nat.”</p><p>When Steve puts the phone down, it’s to find Bucky slouched against the wall to the side, watching Steve intently.</p><p>“Trouble?” he asks, looking and sounding like an entirely different man than the one who poked Steve awake and wheedled him for coffee. Steve’s sure he’s no different, and he doesn’t regret doing what he has to do, being what he has to be, but he does spare a moment to mourn the loss of what could have been.</p><p>“Ross is rounding our people up. You heard of the Raft?”</p><p>Bucky’s expression darkens, and that’s answer enough.</p><p>“You’re leaving,” he says, not a question. “Natasha?”</p><p>“On the way.”</p><p>“Who do they have?”</p><p>“The twins, Sam, and Clint.”</p><p>“Fuck.” Bucky exhales softly, expression pained. “Want me to suit up?”</p><p><em>Yes</em>, Steve wants to say.</p><p>Bucky was one of his best assets before he left the Avengers Initiative. He didn’t have Tony’s unique brand of firepower or Thor’s capacity for sheer devastation. He was more like Natasha, impressive in his sheer versatility. And he worked like a dream with Steve, no matter how twisted their personal affairs became, because they share the ability to put all that away and become what the mission needs them to be.</p><p>So he almost says yes.</p><p>It’s not Natasha’s suggestion of a back-up plan that stays his tongue. It’s Bucky’s himself, dressed in sweatpants and at home in this quaint French villa. Bucky, whose guns and knives are stashed around the house and not on his person. Bucky, who ducked his head at Steve and smiled and said he was happy. Bucky, who wanted to stop being a gun.</p><p>“No,” Steve says. Makes himself smile, makes it reassuring. “If the rescue mission goes to hell, we might need help. But I don’t intend to let it fail.”</p><p>Bucky nods once. It’s a sharp, sure motion, so very familiar.</p><p>Steve’s off the couch and striding towards him without quite thinking about it. Bucky passively lets himself be pulled into a crushing hug and stays limp in Steve’s arms for only a second before returning the hug with desperate force.</p><p>“Be careful, Buck,” Steve says, whispering the words into Bucky’s hair.</p><p>“That’s my line.”</p><p>“I’m serious. You’ll be on their radar.”</p><p>Bucky holds him tighter, nails digging into Steve’s bare back.</p><p>“I’m the Winter fucking Soldier. Ain’t gonna make it easy for them. Give ‘em hell, Steve.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>When he finally leaves, barely an hour later, Steve doesn’t kiss Bucky goodbye, but god, he wants to.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I love hearing from you &lt;3</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
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